Revision as of 13:38, May 24, 2012

The Holy Metropolis of Eleytheroupolis is one of the metropolises of the New Lands in Greece that is within the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople but de facto is administered for practical reasons as part of the Church of Greece under an agreement between the churches of Athens and Constantinople. The metropolis is located in northern Greece in the eastern part of Greek Macedonia.

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History

An episcopal see in the area of the present metropolis existed in the ninth century identified as the Diocese of Alektoropoleos, the evidence of which survives in the present day area of New Peramos near Kavala. The Diocese of Alektoropoleos is first mentioned in the ranking list of the bishops in 901 wherein the diocese is listed as the sixth diocese under the jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Philippi.

As the population around the seat of the diocese decreased in the fourteenth century, the seat of the diocese was moved to the present day village of Eleftherai. Another move of the seat occurred about the second half of the eighteenth century, to old Pravi. In 1889, Patriarch Dionysius V elevated the Diocese of Eleftheroupoleos to a metropolis with Bishop Dionysios Stavridis as its first Metropolitan. In 1929, the metropolis was renamed "Pravi Eleftheroupoli".[1]